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Who Move Pallets w palletcentral.com PalletCentral • September-October 2017 13 Prove Yourself, Until You Don't Have To CAROLYN BEACH VICE PRESIDENT WESTSIDE PALLET C arolyn Beach got into the pallet industry by way of her father, who started Westside Pallet. "He really started growing when I was expecting my second child. I wanted a more flexible job and I knew he was going to need someone to run his new office," she says. "I never expected that pallets would be my career." When her father passed in 2009, Carolyn continued to oversee the company. "My management team have been with the company from the beginning, so they are the ones that keep the day to day operations going. I still work in the office but mostly I deal with customer relations, pricing and problem solving," she says. The business continues to thrive, with a new 3.5-acre expansion to their current facilities. "It's been great to look across the street and watch our pole barn go up for more production room. And the rest of the land will be for pallet storage," she says. Earlier in her career, Carolyn did feel she had to prove herself more than once. "In the beginning, it was assumed that my husband was the one in the industry and questions about the business were automatically directed toward him. He quickly referred them to me," she says. "I always found it amusing. But that doesn't happen much anymore simply because I'm more known in the industry." As the pallet industry evolves, she also looks forward to a multiplicity of voices and perspectives. "Any time you have a variety of people involved in the industry, it is a positive thing. Not just female voices. We need both men and women, veteran pallet manufacturers as well as the younger generation coming in. And we need voices from all regions of the US," she says. "It just helps get new perspectives on the issues that the pallet industry faces." Just Try to Keep Getting Better DEBRA BERRY CEO A PALLETABLE SOLUTION D ebra Berry and husband Peter co-founded Berry Industrial Group in 1984. "Peter had decided to start a company, but internal business process and protocol was not his forte. That's not what he does, so I came in to organize the business, start building the foundations – production, accounting, legal, banking, HR – and that's how we started," she says. The journey from start-up to established business has been a process of continuous improvement. "I'm always looking to